Library News Blog

Catalog records grow longer

From the Fall 2014 newsletter

Have you noticed that some CUNY+ catalog records are long and filled with contents and summary notes about the work, and some records are terse, with the minimal amount of information available? When a user searches CUNY+ looking for a book, the user will eventually click on a title from a list of search results, thus bringing them to the full view of the record of that book.

As a cataloger, I am seeing long records more than I used to as a user. Traditionally, an old printed card catalog that followed the rules of Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR2) usually included the following information: author, title, imprint, physical description, and sometimes a brief note and the Library of Congress subject headings—and the most important element, the call number! All of this information would fit on to an index-sized card and be filed into the drawer.

In the 21st century, hard drives and server spaces are becoming very inexpensive. Libraries no longer worry about a long MARC record taking up too much storage space. Catalogers can supply as much information as possible into a single catalog record, making the information more complete for the user. Now we can add an extended version of the table of contents, and summary notes, such as one from the publisher and one from the book jacket.

The benefit of a long catalog record is the keyword search. When performing a keyword search, the subject, and almost all other fields in the record are searched for the keyword.

My only concern for a long catalog record is, considering the notorious short attention span of the younger generation, how much time would they be willing to spend looking at the long table of contents and summary notes to find what they need?

Researching a mental illness in the library

From the Fall 2014 newsletter

Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSBP) is an unusual mental illness where a caretaker falsifies a child’s illness. Sometimes the caretaker might go to the extreme of actually making the child sick. MedlinePlus also identifies MSBP as a form of child abuse. What is stranger still is that the caretakers who have MSBP often work in health care and do a good job describing and faking the symptoms.

Unfortunately, the cause of MSBP is unknown, and it is very hard to detect this form of child abuse when it happens. A child who has a long medical history with symptoms that do not match normal diseases might be a signal of something wrong.

The Library has several books specifically about MSBP (see right). The Library of Congress subject heading is “Munchausen syndrome by proxy.” Tip: when performing a subject search at the CUNY+ catalog, a user can type in the Library of Congress subject heading in the search box and see a list of results under this subject heading.

Another way to look up books about MSBP is to perform a search using the call number in the CUNY+ catalog, or by simply browsing the Library stacks. The Library of Congress classed MSBP under Medicine-Neurosciences-Psychiatry-Psychiatric aspects of personality and behavior conditions-Other personality disorders, behavior problems, situations, etc. (call number RC569.5 .M83).

Tip: select the “call number” search type in the CUNY+ catalog and type in the call number, here RC569.5 .M83, in the search box. The search results will show a list of books classed under this subject heading.

Here’s what how the Library of Congress classifies the subject.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Munchausen syndrome by proxy.

Narrower Topics:

Munchausen syndrome by proxy -- Case studies.

Munchausen syndrome by proxy -- Diagnosis.

Munchausen syndrome by proxy -- United States

Munchausen syndrome by proxy -- United States -- Case studies

Child abuse – Investigation

See From Tracing terms (see from reference from a topical term not used in an established L.C. Subject Heading):

MBPS (Syndrome)

Meadow syndrome

MSBP (Syndrome)

MSP (Syndrome)

Munchausen abuse

Munchausen by proxy syndrome

Munchausen proxy syndrome

Polle syndrome

See From Tracing terms (see also from reference from an established topical term to a related established L.C. Subject Heading):

The Media Department of the Library continues to grow its collection of DVDs. They are still in heavy demand by John Jay College faculty, on par with popular streaming video collections.

How do you find out which DVDs are available in the library? Use the trusty library catalog, CUNY+. We put records there for all our acquisitions—print, electronic, visual, etc. If you know the title of the DVD you are looking for, perform a “Title begins with...” search in CUNY+.

To find DVDs on a topic, use a keyword search: identify your topic keywords and combine it with the keywords and dvd or video or media or film. This is a very broad search that can pick up monographic titles dealing with the media or film industry as well, but it is quick and convenient.

Another way to pinpoint DVD materials in CUNY+ catalog search is to go to the Advanced Search tab—there is such an option, who knew?! Limit your search to media as Record Type and visual materials as Format Type. (See top of page.) Tip: using an asterisk * as a wildcard expands search (e.g., PRISON* should catch prison, prisons, prisoner, prisoners, etc.).

CUNY+ should have records for both physical (DVD and VHS) and streaming video formats. We strive to maintain catalog records as accurately as possible, but due to technicalities that go beyond control of John Jay College librarians, it is recommended to search each streaming video collection individually, rather than relying solely on the records in CUNY+. The vendors constantly add new titles and pull out others. Updating CUNY+ records takes time and human intervention. Please send an email to libvideo@jjay.cuny.edu with any questions about DVD or streaming video availability.

It is always recommended to request DVDs for your classes in advance. Some titles are extremely popular and might not be available for viewing on the spot. We also share our DVD collection with other CUNY schools through interlibrary loan (on a limited basis). Students may view DVDs in the library but cannot take them home.

Highlights of our recent DVD acquisitions

The Waiting Room (Oley, PA : Bullfrog Films, c2012). Documentary about an American public hospital struggling to care for a community of largely uninsured patients. DVD-1325

Untouchable? (Oley, PA : Bullfrog Films, c2000). Examines the lives of Dalits in a small village in southern India. DVD-1326

I Am A Man (Northampton, MA : Media Education Foundation, 2006). An exploration of “what it means to be a black man in America.” DVD-1327

The Red Button: The Man Who Saved The World (MG Production and LogTV Ltd, 2011). “At four minutes past midnight on September 26, 1983 the world stood on the brink of nuclear war. The fate of our globe was in the hands of one man, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov.” DVD-1329

John Cassavetes: Five Films (Irvington, NY : Criterion Collection, 2004). Films by a pioneer of independent film. Includes A Woman Under the Influence (1974). DVD-1332

Living for 32 (Cuomo Cole Productions, [c2010]). The inspirational story of Colin Goddard, a survivor of the Virginia Tech massacre that took place on April 16, 2007. DVD-1336

Rhyme and Punishment (Chatsworth, CA : Image Entertainment, 2011). Look inside the nation’s toughest prisons to capture the real-life stories of some of the most influential hip-hop artists who have ever been incarcerated. DVD-1344

Contagion (Burbank, CA : Warner Home Video, 2011). A woman returns to the U.S. from a business trip to Hong Kong, bringing a deadly virus with her... DVD-1345

Ebola: The Plague Fighters (WGBH Educational Foundation : WGBH Boston Video, 2007). When an outbreak of the Ebola virus swept through Zaire in May 1995, Nova was the only film crew permitted to cover the outbreak. DVD-1346

The most popular collection in our Special Collections remains the Criminal Trial Transcripts of New York 1883–1927. These 3,326 transcripts record court proceedings in NY County (Manhattan and The Bronx). Most of the trials (numbering 2,700) were heard in the Court of General Sessions 1887-1927, which was a lower criminal court. We received this collection from the New York County Clerk’s office back in 1972. In 1983-84, we received an NEH grant to index and microfilm the collection, which made the transcripts available by interlibrary loan on 425 microfilm reels.

In 2006, as part of our Crime in New York 1850-1950 grant from the Metropolitan New York Library Council, we made the index available online and began digitizing selected transcripts in 2006. In 2012, we obtained a digital microfilm reader/scanner which allows patrons to create their own PDFs of a trial from the microfilm. We have recently digitized transcripts relating to abortion and “White Slavery” to support the research of Library faculty members. We plan to continue to digitize transcripts with the support of small grants. Sometime soon the digitized transcripts will move over from our old Crime in New York 1850-1950 site to our new Digital Collections.

The great aspect of this collection is the growing list of publications generated from research in this collection, whose contents are often requested by interlibrary loan. There are a lot more research topics in these 3,326 transcripts and students at John Jay and elsewhere are often assigned to read a transcript and research the case in classes related to New York City crime history.

For more on our trial transcripts, other transcript collections at other repositories and all our Special Collections see our Special Collections Guide, or contact Dr. Ellen Belcher. Listed here are a few books and articles generated from research in this collection.

Wu, a historian at Indiana University Bloomington, traces how Chinese and Japanese Americans, once considered as the 'yellow peril,' have become the ‘model minority.’ As the book’s chapters alternate between describing the experiences of Chinese and Japanese Americans, Wu touches on major events in Asian American history: the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, WWII and internment camps for Japanese Americans, the civil rights movement, and others.

French, Howard W. China's second continent: how a million migrants are building a new empire in Africa. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014. DT16 .C48 F74 2014

At present, China is Africa’s largest trading partner, and over one million Chinese now live and work in Africa. The author describes this recent phenomenon as he travels across the continent and meets Chinese laborers, businessmen, and developers.

Bringing together personal stories of those pursued graduate education or decided against it, the book doesn’t, ultimately, offer a definitive answer to its title question. Instead, it invites its readers—those who seek and those who are asked for advice—to consider the multiple and far-reaching consequences of either choice.

The Library provides access to a large collection of resources useful for researching controversial issues: research reports, reference materials, ebooks, periodical articles, editorials, speeches, public opinion polls, and multimedia files. The following is a list of selected databases that cover current events and controversial issues.

CQ Researcher Plus Archive is composed of over 3,600 research reports, which provide in-depth analysis of timely issues in the areas of health, social trends, criminal justice, education, the environment, science and technology, international affairs, and the economy. Written by experienced journalists, each report features an article overview, extensive discussion and background information, a chronology, pro/con debates, an outlook for the future, and a bibliography. Dating back to 1923, reports can be studied historically as the database tracks issues published in reports from earlier years.

Opposing Viewpoints in Context is another full-text database covering a wide range of issues. Topics are arranged under broad subject headings such as “business and economics,” “health and medicine,” “society and culture,” or “law and politics.” Many types of content are available in this multifaceted, multi-disciplinary database, including pro/con viewpoint essays, topic and court case overviews, agency profiles, national and global news sources, academic journal and magazine articles, primary sources, images, videos, podcasts, multimedia files, interactive maps, statistical information, and links to websites.

Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL) consists of hundreds of online reference books, spanning sources in art, literature, humanities, sciences, and social sciences, as well as medicine and law. Articles on contemporary issues can be found in numerous subject encyclopedias, with titles including encyclopedias of American social issues, American immigration, bioethics, cybercrime, climate change, environment, homelessness, law enforcement, media violence, and social problems. This database also features reference handbooks and other full-length online reference (or e-reference) books, which are often published as books in a series (Contemporary World Issues Series, Information Plus Reference Series). Online reference titles include books on abortion, capital punishment, gun control, marijuana, and women and crime.

In contrast to GVRL, Academic Search Complete primarily contains academic journal and other periodical articles, including full-text access to more than 7,850 peer-reviewed journals in over 20 academic fields. Research studies in scholarly journals in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities impart excellent background information on a wide range of issues. Other sources available in this database include Congressional Digest, an independent, impartial publication that summarizes key arguments for and against current issues before Congress, and Vital Speeches of the Day, which reproduces major speeches given by modern leaders. Among its collection of magazines, e.g. Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, Atlantic, Mother Jones, Harper’s, The Nation, Commentary, National Review, some titles aim to be objective regarding current affairs, while others are openly opinionated, representing well-delineated liberal or conservative viewpoints.

LexisNexis Academic is a premier database well known for its extensive collection of legal, news, business, and reference sources. Supreme Court decisions and law review articles can be applied to pro and con research, as court cases often begin as controversial issues in the news. The Gallup Poll News Service analyzes findings from public opinion polls. A wide range of news sources is available in the database. Containing over 3,000 local, regional, national, and international newspapers, the full text newspaper collection is especially notable.

Using editorials and opinion pieces published in multiple newspapers, researchers can identify and examine different points-of-view. Along with LexisNexis Academic, two library databases recommended for these types of comparisons are the Wall Street Journal Database (Proquest), containing one very influential newspaper, and Ethnic NewsWatch, containing more than 200 ethnic, minority and native newspapers, magazines and journals. Topics, such as affirmative action, the Dream Act, police use of force, racial profiling, and raising the minimum wage, may highlight differences between mainstream newspapers and the minority press, between publications originating in different geographical regions, or between titles promoting opposing political philosophies.

A brief history of federated & web-scale search in the library

From the Fall 2014 Newsletter

The Lloyd Sealy Library, with considerable help from CUNY, currently provides access to over 200 databases, multiple ebook collections, six streaming video collections, and over 80,000 online journals; not to mention the millions of books listed in the CUNY online library catalog (CUNY+). Students (and faculty, too) are understandably bewildered by this surfeit of riches. Give me a single search box, they cry, let me put some words in it, and out should come the books and articles that I need to write my paper.

Twenty years ago that was a ridiculous idea, but since the rise of the Google search engine, the general public has learned that they can, in fact, just put a term into a search box and pretty much all the time get the information they want. Why can’t this happen in the world of scholarly writing?

Actually, to a certain extent, it can. Library publishers and database vendors have been experimenting with this idea since the middle of the last decade. “Federated search” engines were developed, which let users enter search terms that were then turned into queries sent to multiple distinct databases at the same time. The Lloyd Sealy Library subscribed to such a federated search service beginning in 2009; we called it “Hound Hunt.” Federated search was slow and clunky; results were incomplete; there were duplicated results; and extra clicks were needed to finally get to the full text of the article. Hound Hunt lasted until summer 2013, but it never really took off in popularity at John Jay:

The Library community knew that a more “Google-like” experience was needed, and a number of library vendors developed “web-scale discovery services.” Instead of a search bot performing separate searches on multiple different databases, publishers and databases vendors agreed to contribute their metadata to huge merged indexes which could be searched quickly and painlessly via a “discovery” layer that then displays results in a user-friendly and intuitive manner, leading seamlessly to the full text of articles, books and even media. Anticipating that the CUNY libraries would be moving to a discovery service offered by the vendor of our online catalog, but knowing that this service was at least a year away, the Lloyd Sealy Library, with the help of Student Technology Fee funds, subscribed to the EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) beginning in August 2013. Our users immediately found this search to be faster, easier and more rewarding, as the following usage figures reveal:

The EDS service did not search the books listed in CUNY+, unfortunately, performing searches only on the combined indexes of multiple article databases. But the CUNY Office of Library Services has now begun implementing the Primo Discovery Service, which can search multiple databases plus CUNY+ all at once. The CUNY implementation of Primo, named CUNY OneSearch, is now available in beta form on the Library website. Try experimenting with OneSearch (also available as a tab on the Library’s home page).

More information about OneSearch will be forthcoming on the Library website and in the Spring 2015 issue of Classified Information.

The demand for digital content anytime from anywhere continues to increase. The Library is doing its part to keep up with this demand. It provides 24/7 access to over 225 databases through its website, including access to a growing collection of streaming videos. Currently, you can watch over 25,000 streaming videos in subject areas across John Jay’s curriculum.

These streaming videos, which allow for unlimited 24/7 access, include embed codes and links, making it easy to include them in course syllabi and other course management tools like Blackboard. Each collection has a user-friendly interface that allows you to browse or search by title, discipline, historical event, therapeutic approach, cultural group or other criteria depending on the nature of the content.

Listed below are the databases containing these streaming videos and the top five titles accessed by the John Jay community in the past year.

To find a streaming video that meets your needs, follow the links above or go to the Library’s home page and select one of these collections from the list of databases by title. A large proportion of the library’s streaming videos can only by found by searching the individual collections, that is, individual titles/names are not represented anywhere else. Once in the collection, use the unique tools on each interface to browse or search for content.

Make sure that links are proxied. If you wish to link to any of these videos in course materials, please keep in mind that access to database content licensed by the Library is possible from outside the college only through the Library’s proxy server. The proxy server ensures access for all John Jay students, faculty and staff by requiring them to sign in using their John Jay email user ID and password. If you copy a link when you are off campus, the proxy server address (ez.lib.jjay.cuny.edu) should appear somewhere in the link.

For links that do not contain the proxy server address (which is often but not always the case if a link is copied while on campus), the library proxy server prefix address: http://ez.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/login?url= should be added before the permanent URL. Be sure to test any links before sharing them! Please email Prof. Maureen Richards if you encounter any problems linking to content.

For more information about the library’s video collection, freely available streaming videos or how to reserve any of the Library’s videos on DVD or VHS, visit the Videos subject guide.

Update July 2016: Due to restricted budgets, the library has had to make difficult decisions about our database offerings and will no longer subscribe to Rosetta Stone. We regret any inconvenience this causes.

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Archived article from the Fall 2014 Newsletter

Whether you are currently enrolled in a foreign language class, always wanted to learn another language, or would like to engage with confidence in multilingual settings at home or abroad, now you have one more tool to help achieve your goals. Anyone with a current John Jay email address can use the Rosetta Stone Library Solution through the Lloyd Sealy Library website to study the following languages:

Arabic

Dari

Dutch

English (UK & US)

Farsi

French

German

Greek

Hebrew

Hindi

Indonesian

Irish

Italian

Japanese

Korean

Latin

Mandarin

Pashto

Polish

Portuguese

Russian

Spanish (Latin America & Spain)

Swahili

Swedish

Tagalog

Turkish

Urdu

Vietnamese

Key features include:

50 hours of foundational instruction

Core lessons to build reading, writing, speaking and listening skills

Focused activities to refine grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation

When you are ready to get started, access Rosetta Stone from any device by going to the library website and selecting Rosetta Stone from the dropdown menu of popular databases, or find it on the list of database titles. If you are new to Rosetta Stone, click on the “First Time Users” link to make sure your device has the necessary resources to run Rosetta Stone. Next, click on “Launch Rosetta Stone” to start learning.

Once you have set up your account, you can continue building your language skills anytime and anywhere you have internet access by returning to the library website’s link to Rosetta Stone and entering the email and password you used to create your account.

Please keep in mind that although you can access your account from all types of devices through a web browser—including smartphones and tablets—you must always sign in through the link on the library website. You cannot access this product through apps.

This year the Library began subscribing to Psychological Experiments Online, a multimedia collection of documents and videos covering famous experiments in psychology, such as the Stanford Prison Experiment and experiments on conformity and obedience to authority. The collection contains 51 streaming videos totaling 37 hours of viewing time. Videos include lectures, presentations, documentaries, experiment footage and interviews. Notable video titles include Quiet Rage: The Stanford Prison Experiment and Obedience. Some videos are conveniently divided into themed sections which allow a quick and easy navigation. Others include a running transcript. The collection also consists of 538 books and documents totaling over 36,000 pages of content. Documents include reference titles such as Classic Experiments in Psychology, instructional materials and journal articles.

The collection can be searched using the simple keyword search box on the introductory screen or the advanced search screen where users can enter the name of a psychologist, experiment or methodology. Results can be filtered by format (text, video, etc.), content type (documentary, reference, instructional materials, interview, article), and methodology (observation methods, experiment design, and so on). Results can be saved on the Alexander Street Press’s platform and shared through social networking sites and email. Permanent links accompany each item in the collection and citations can be exported to various citation management tools.

Professors have mentioned that Psychological Experiments Online has been useful in classes such as Theories of Personality (PSY 353) and Correctional Psychology (PSY 272, 373). Videos can be assigned prior to class for later classroom discussion or they can be screened in class.

If you have any questions about Psychological Experiments Online, please contact the Electronic Resources Librarian, Prof. Maureen Richards.